Radioisotopes have long been produced by medium- or low-energy (5-30 MeV) irradiation for medical purposes, and are used in many important industrial and scientific applications, foremost of which is as tracers: radioactive drugs are synthesized by reactions with appropriate non-radioactive precursors, and, when administered in the human body, permit Positron Emission Tomography (PET) diagnosis and therapy monitoring, particularly of tumours. By measuring radiation, it is also possible to monitor transformations of the element and/or related molecule, which is useful in chemistry (reaction mechanism studies), biology (metabolism genetics studies), and, as stated, in medicine for diagnosis and therapy.
In known systems for producing radioisotopes, the only automated passage is between the irradiation station and the purification station, where the desired radioisotope is separated from both the target-carrier material and the non-reacting target and any impurities (WO9707122).
Moreover, in known production systems, the target-carrier, on which the metal isotope for irradiation is deposited, is dissolved together with the irradiated target and subsequently removed from the formed radioisotope by means of a purification process.
In other words, in the above known systems, the target, once deposited on the target-carrier, is set up manually at the irradiation station, and purification is more complex and time-consuming than necessary to simply separate the formed radioisotope from the starting isotope.